"Bang! It’s beautiful. Regional. Like a perfectly aimed velvet fist. Inky, impressive, like ironstone rocking through mulberry, like gumleaf coated in slippery, cedary, freshly podded vanilla. It’s a great, warm, silken, abundant Aberfeldy.z'

Rated : 95 Points
Drink : 2006-2016

Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front, January 2005

The Aberfeldy vineyard is a unique site ­ friable red loam over limestone nestled at the bottom of the eastern most hills of the Clare Valley, just 5 km south ­ east of the township of Clare.

When the Birks family of Wendouree fame settled the area they planted this site with Shiraz in 1904. Many of these vines remain and those which have perished have been replaced with rootlings of the same clones. The cropping level in the vineyard is never more than 1.5 tonnes per acre, producing grapes with intense colour, flavour and tannins. This fruit is the backbone of The Aberfeldy Shiraz. The wine has intense magenta colour with aromatics of blackberry, plum and coffee chocolate complemented by the oak derived characters of clove, cinnamon and vanilla. The palate is full bodied with dark berry conserve flavours and balanced oak, tannin and acidity. Any aggressive tannins have been removed with egg white fining prior to bottling. The wine has persistent sweet fruit and oak aftertaste, with power and great finesse, and will reward patient cellaring. .

All components of this blend were fermented to dryness on skins and subsequently left on skins for a further three weeks before being pressed in our basket press. All pressings have been returned to the wine. It then spent 12 months in one year old American oak and 11 months in new American oak in our cool room before blending, fining and bottling in May 2004. The wine has not been filtered prior to bottling.

This wine is made from 100 per cent shiraz grown on the Aberfeldy Vineyard, which is owned by Jim McDowell and Anne Brown.

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